A Different Path
by JustMe777
Summary: When the Doctor comes to visit Earth, he finds Donna in a most unexpected position. Post Journey's end, but disregards the events of the End of Time.


Chapter One: The Perfect Life

For the first time in Donna Noble's life she felt truly happy.

She led a life that was filled to the brim with adventures and secrets and excitement, had a posh job where she was held in the highest esteem by all of her colleagues, and she also happened to be on the brink of a relationship with the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Colin Everest was his name and he was the resident computer whiz of the agency. He had a surplus of computer skills and Donna had a lack thereof. Rarely a day went by without Donna's computer freezing or crashing or doing something of the like and Colin coming over to fix it. In less than a month of these frequent meetings, Colin had fallen head over heels for Miss Nobles.

Yes, life was quite perfect for Donna.

Two years ago, Donna would never have imagined living such a glorious life. She was still living with her mum and grandpop then; constantly trapped in a house with the sound of her mother nagging and constantly unemployed, Donna's life seemed like an abyss of despair. She spent the majority of her days doing crossword puzzles and watching tellie – which was terribly dull. Every day she was reminded what an utter failure she was.

Then one day everything changed. As if by magic, Donna's mother's constant nagging stopped. Her family became wildly supportive of her – her biggest fans and even encouraged her to apply for a public relations job for a scientific research company in Canada. She took the job immediately.

It was a good job and the people were friendly, but Donna felt bored. She found herself gazing out her window – longing for something different, for adventure. It was this gazing out of windows which got Donna Nobles in trouble.

One day after lunch, when she _should have_ been working diligently on the piles of paperwork that flooded her desk, she looked out her window to observe a scaly-looking young man chasing a professional looking young woman. Any other _normal _woman in Donna's position would have called security, but – as her mother had told her repeatedly in former years – Donna Noble was anything but normal.

Because of this abnormality of hers, Donna grabbed her purse and bolted down the stairs to find that the reptilian man had cornered the girl against a wall.

"Oi!" Donna yelled, without even thinking, "Stay away from her snake-boy!"

The creature turned, surprised at Donna's audacity to challenge him.

"You heard me! Step away! Pick on someone your own size!"

It is doubtful that Donna realized that she was the same size as the reptile, but she was anticipating an attack. As soon as the creature took a step forward, she sprayed it with pepper spray and kicking him in the stomach. He fell to the ground, obviously in pain.

Donna turned to the girl she had rescued to see if she was alright, but the girl was already chatting away on her cell phone device.

"Headquarters? Yes, this is White Hawk. I just ran into a QTV which attacked me behind the building on 706 Rhodes Street. Yes, I'm alright. A woman on the road helped me." She shifted her weight to the other leg. "I don't know if she's in an agency or not. I didn't ask. Okay. Alright. Yes, sir."

The girl closed her phone and looked at Donna. "I'm really sorry about that. It was my boss; he wanted to know why I'm late." The girl stuck out her hand, "I'm Abby Scott, by the way. Thanks for helping me back there."

Donna folded her arms nervously. "Oh, it was nothing. Just your standard lone terileptil wandering town in the middle of day. Bit odd, though, I suppose, so far was from its home planet, Terileptus, all by itself without any weapons that I can see. They have a great civilization, those terileptils, and this one's here. I wonder why."

Donna took a step closer and gave the body a soft nudge, as if to check to see if the creature was really there.

The girl – Abby – just stared at Donna, amazed. Civilians didn't know about creatures like Terileptils. In fact, even the most experienced of Abby's colleagues in the agency didn't know half as much about the species as Donna had spouted off.

"How do you know that? Do you work for UNIT or Torchwood?"

Donna squinted as one of her horrendous migraines came on. The names "Torchwood" and "UNIT" sounded so familiar, but she had no idea what they were. In fact, she had no idea how she even knew the information she had just listed for the strange girl she met on the street.

"No, I…" Donna began, "I have no clue how I knew that. I'm sorry."

Donna didn't even wait after that for Abby to say goodbye, but wandered back to the pile of paperwork on her desk. She remembered the strangest things, knew random facts that no one else did, and sometimes scared herself.

Nonetheless, the next day Abby and her boss showed up at Donna's office to offer Donna a job protecting the earth from the danger of aliens. She would be a consultant for the Species Information department in the agency. She was skeptical at first, but after a significant hourly wage was offered complete with benefits to boot, Donna quickly agreed.

Looking back, only a few years later, Donna felt it was the best decision of her life.


End file.
